International Trade committee  I think it's critically important because it's all about having a level playing field. There's a cost to us to produce under those regulatory regimes. For us, these regimes are what they are, and they do a good job of ensuring a high-quality, safe product. We want to see that those standards are applied to other Pacific Alliance members.

International Trade committee  Currently, the Canadian canned seafood category is worth about $415 million. As I said, we're a little under half of all canned seafood sales in Canada. With respect to Blacks Harbour, in the sardine category we currently have about a 55% share of that market. We used to have a higher share but, for reasons I cited earlier, we've seen increasing costs in our operation that we've had to pass along, and that has had an effect on our market share.

International Trade committee  I think it's a long-term competitive issue there, because they already have access to this market. Canada has not applied substantial tariffs at all to importation of canned sardine products for some time, so we've contended with that for a number of years. It's a little more complex than just tariffs, because there are over 20—I think 22—different species of small marine fish that can be canned and sold as sardine product.

International Trade committee  What I was referring to was we felt there was a situation where we know what the labour costs are in Mexico, what the labour costs are in Peru and in Chile. Each of those markets is different. There are different conditions in each of the markets on a variety of regulatory and labour practices and standards, and so forth.

International Trade committee  I'll first talk to NAFTA with respect to the trade we entered into with Mexico. Mexico has a 20.5% tariff on canned seafood products going into its market, and NAFTA allowed us to enter that market when it came into force, and we were able to built a small business, a small footprint.

International Trade committee  We have been since the 1880s.

International Trade committee  We're about to celebrate our 125th year with a promotion in the Carribean area and Central America.

International Trade committee  Thank you. Good morning. My name is David Lomas, vice-president, marketing and business development, with the international division of Connors Bros. Clover Leaf Seafoods Company. I'm going to shorten the company reference to just Connors, going forward, in the interests of time.